THEIR closest parallel is the notoriety which dogged them from the very
day of their death. Each, for his own exploits, was the most famous man of
his time, the favourite of broadsides, the prime hero of the
ballad-mongers. And each owed his fame as much to good fortune as to
merit, since both were excelled in their generation by more skilful
scoundrels. If Gilderoy was unsurpassed in brutality, he fell immeasurably
below Hind in artistry and wit, nor may he be compared to such
accomplished highwaymen as Mull Sack or the Golden Farmer. His method was
not elevated by a touch of the grand style. He stamped all the rules of
the road beneath his contemptuous foot, and cared not what enormity he
committed in his quest for gold. Yet, though he lived in the true Augustan
age, he yielded to no one of his rivals in glorious recognition. So, too,
Jack Rann, of the Sixteen Strings, was a near contemporary of George
Barrington. While that nimble-fingered prig was making a brilliant
appearance at Vauxhall, and emptying the pockets of his intimates, Rann
was riding over Hounslow Heath, and flashing his pistol in the eye of the
wayfarer. The very year in which Jack danced his last jig at Tyburn,
Barrington had astonished London by a fruitless attempt to steal Prince
Orloff's miraculous snuff-box. And not even Ellen Roach herself would have
dared to assert that Rann was Barrington's equal in sleight of hand. But
Rann holds his own against the best of his craft, with an imperishable
name, while a host of more distinguished cracksmen are excluded even from
the Newgate Calendar.
In truth, there is one quality which has naught to do with artistic
supremacy; and in this quality both Rann and Gilderoy were rich beyond
their fellows. They knew (none better) how to impose upon the world. Had
their deserts been even less than they were, they would still have been
bravely notorious. It is a common superstition that the talent for
advertisement has but a transitory effect, that time sets all men in their
proper places.
Nothing can be more false; for he who has once declared himself among the
great ones of the earth, not only holds his position while he lives, but
forces an unreasoning admiration upon the future. Though he declines from
the lofty throne, whereon his own vanity and love of praise have set him,
he still stands above the modest level which contents the genuinely great.
Why does Euripides still throw a shadow upon the worthier poets of his
time? Because he had the faculty of displacement, because he could compel
the world to profess an interest not only in his work but in himself. Why
is Michael Angelo a loftier figure in the history of art than Donatello,
the supreme sculptor of his time? Because Donatello had not the temper
which would bully a hundred popes, and extract a magnificent advertisement
from each encounter. Why does Shelley still claim a larger share of the
world's admiration than Keats, his indubitable superior? Because Shelley
was blessed or cursed with the trick of interesting the world by the
accidents of his life.
So by a similar faculty Gilderoy and Jack Rann have kept themselves and
their achievements in the light of day. Had they lived in the nineteenth
century they might have been the vendors of patent pills, or the chairmen
of bubble companies. Whatever trade they had followed, their names would
have been on every hoarding, their wares would have been puffed in every
journal. They understood the art of publicity better than any of their
contemporaries, and they are remembered not because they were the best
thieves of their time, but because they were determined to interest the
people in their misdeeds. Gilderoy's brutality, which was always
theatrical, ensured a constant remembrance, and the lofty gallows added to
his repute; while the brilliant inspiration of the strings, which
decorated Rann's breeches, was sufficient to conquer death. How should a
hero sink to oblivion who had chosen for himself so splendid a name as
Sixteen-String Jack?
So far, then, their achievement is parallel. And parallel also is their
taste for melodrama. Each employed means too great or too violent for the
end in view. Gilderoy burnt houses and ravished women, when his sole
object was the acquisition of money. Sixteen-String Jack terrified
Bagnigge Wells with the dreadful announcement that he was a highwayman,
when his kindly, stupid heart would have shrunk from the shedding of a
drop of blood. So they both blustered through the world, the one in deed,
the other in word; and both played their parts with so little refinement
that they frightened the groundlings to a timid admiration. Here the
resemblance is at an end. In the essentials of their trade Gilderoy was a
professional, Rann a mere amateur. They both bullied; but, while
Sixteen-String Jack was content to shout threats, and pick up
half-a-crown, Gilderoy breathed murder, and demanded a vast ransom. Only
once in his career did the 'disgraceful Scotsman' become gay and debonair.
Only once did he relax the tension of his frown, and pick pockets with the
lightness and freedom of a gentleman. It was on his voyage to France that
he forgot his old policy of arson and pillage, and truly the Court of the
Great King was not the place for his rapacious cruelty. Jack Rann, on the
other hand, would have taken life as a prolonged jest, if Sir John
Fielding and the sheriffs had not checked his mirth. He was but a bungler
on the road, with no more resource than he might have learned from the
common chap-book, or from the dying speeches, hawked in Newgate Street.
But he had a fine talent for merriment; he loved nothing so well as a
smart coat and a pretty woman. Thieving was no passion with him, but a
necessity. How could he dance at a masquerade or court his Ellen with an
empty pocket? So he took to the road as the sole profession of an idle
man, and he bullied his way from Hounslow to Epping in sheer lightness of
heart. After all, to rob Dr. Bell of eighteenpence was the work of a
simpleton. It was a very pretty taste which expressed itself in a
pea-green coat and deathless strings; and Rann will keep posterity's
respect rather for the accessories of his art than for the art itself. On
the other hand, you cannot imagine Gilderoy habited otherwise than in
black; you cannot imagine this monstrous matricide taking pleasure in the
smaller elegancies of life. From first to last he was the stern and
beetle-browed marauder, who would have despised the frippery of
Sixteen-String Jack as vehemently as his sudden appearance would have
frightened the foppish lover of Ellen Roach.
Their conduct with women is sufficient index of their character. Jack Rann
was too general a lover for fidelity. But he was amiable, even in his
unfaithfulness; he won the undying affection of his Ellen; he never stood
in the dock without a nosegay tied up by fair and nimble fingers; he was
attended to Tyburn by a bevy of distinguished admirers. Gilderoy, on the
other hand, approached women in a spirit of violence. His Sadic temper
drove him to kill those whom he affected to love. And his cruelty was
amply repaid. While Ellen Roach perjured herself to save the lover, to
whose memory she professed a lifelong loyalty, it was Peg Cunningham who
wreaked her vengeance in the betrayal of Gilderoy. He remained true to his
character, when he ripped up the belly of his betrayer. This was the
closing act of his life.
Rann, also, was consistent, even to the gallows. The night before his
death he entertained seven women at supper, and outlaughed them all. The
contrast is not so violent as it appears. The one act is melodrama, the
other farce. And what is farce, but melodrama in a happier shape?
